The invention relates to splash bars useful in crossflow cooling tower and, particularly, to splash bars with positioning slots.
In general, splash bars are used in cooling towers to cause gravitating water to splash and enhance the area of water exposed to a crossflowing air stream inside a cooling tower of either a mechanical or a natural draft type. In one cooling tower splash bar fill, the bars are aligned in a generally parallel direction with the flow of the air stream. The advantage of such alignment is that it exposes a relatively smaller area of fill section to the air stream than would bars aligned across the air stream. This facilitates movement of air through the cooling tower. Typically, the splash bars are supported on transverse grids of spaced vertical and horizontal wires forming windows through which the splash bars project. The horizontal wires support the splash bars along the vertical wires alignment. Various configurations of splash bars are illustrated in De Flon U.S. Pat. No. 3,389,895, Furlong et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,468,521, Fordyce U.S. Pat. No. 3,647,191, Ovard U.S. Pat. No. 4,020,130, Ovard U.S. Pat. No. 4,133,851, Cates et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,181,691, and Japanese Pat. No. 22374/1966.
Some of the foregoing references disclose the use of small notches in the bar to assist positioning of the splash bar at the desired crossing points of the vertical and horizontal wires. This is illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,133,851 and 4,181,691. However, the notches do not provide stability to positively anchor the bars to the hangers during periods of high winds. This is particularly important for splash bars which are manufactured from lightweight material such as plastics. It is not uncommon for a fill bar installer to utilize a clip or tie to fix the bar to the hanger, thus adding to the time of installation and the expense of the project (e.g., see U.S. Pat. No. 3,647,191 at col. 4, line 40).
Another problem with notching in the splash bars of the above patents is that the notches tend to be caught by the wires in the fill hangers as the fill bar is being slid into place before the notches reach the proper wire for fixing the bar in its desired location.
Another shortcoming of the above U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,181,691 and 4,133,851 relates to stiffening ribs which extend upwardly from the horizontal splash plates in position. Thus, in the 4,133,851 patent, the ribs extend upwardly, while in the 4,181,691 patent the legs of the U-shape extend upwardly. The disadvantage is that when the bar is seated between support hangers, the upwardly extending ribs, typically formed of thin plastic material, must take essentially all the bending load in compression rather than in tension, tending to cause thin plastic material to buckle, thus limiting the effective height that such a rib can be extended.
The only reference in which the support ribs project downwardly from the splash portion is Japanese Pat. No. 22374/1966. There, a special hanging wire section is required with intersecting wedge shaped corners so that the sides of the splash section rest on the wires as well as the rib section. This approach is complicated and is subject to the disadvantage of displacement by upward air drafts.